Desktop

As I’ve noted a number of times, I think the appearance of the ultraportable platform will provide a huge boost for GNU/Linux among ordinary users, and prove to be a watershed in the history of open source. The combination of ultraportable form factor with Ubuntu’s ease-of-use will only magnify that effect. And if the rumours about Dell’s new mini Inspiron running Ubuntu (presumably the Netbook Remix) prove correct, we could be witnessing the birth of the ultimate ultraportable.

Since releasing Google Desktop for Linux, we’ve added almost all of our most requested features, like 64-bit support and the ability to search applications and documents. All except one major exception: Desktop Gadgets. Gadget support is not just a single feature, but rather an entire platform for miniature applications. It’s a complex undertaking, but we’re now putting the finishing touches on the product.

F/OSS

Kernel

The very fifth reason open-licensed drivers matter, and a very current one, is that supporting an Open-Licensed driver can create jobs that weren’t there, save money for companies, help optimize drivers outside of the original vendors aggressive product schedule, and allow customers and clients who rely on functional drivers to actually have a say in what goes on with the drivers.

The article “MySQL Gives .NET High Five” comes from a biased source, but nonetheless, the headline can really turn heads given the apathy of Microsoft’s developer community towards this databases, which makes a digital fabric that competes against .NET, WS, and IIS on the Web.

There was a lot of head scratching at this year’s MySQL Conference and Expo when Microsoft was singled out for its contributions to open source development.

“Seriously?” one attendee was overheard asking during the keynote address of Marten Mickos, who was CEO of MySQL AB until Sun Microsystems Inc. acquired the open source database developer for $1 billion in March. Mickos, who’s now senior VP in Sun’s new database group, pointed to Redmond’s work with MySQL in naming Microsoft one of three companies to receive its Partner of the Year awards.

Yesterday we wrote about [cerf 3635 some semi-blind promotion of Novell] and warned about the impact of this, especially when one considers the fact that Novell usesGNU/Linux FUD and OpenSolaris FUD (rarely Windows FUD) to market itself. The item below sheds light on something that Novell did in China not so long ago; Susan Hauser chimed in as well (just days ago) to add to her wood to this fire of GNU effigies.

The Novell “partnership” with Microsoft has been a hot topic in Linux circles since it was announced a few years ago. Recently, Novell and Microsoft introduced a joint-marketing site to promote their collaboration.

A few years ago, I had really high hope’s for Novell’s forays in to Linux. However; bad move after bad move has left me with no confidence in Novell or their Linux products. I can’t say I was shocked to find this work of misinformation touting the “benefits” of Novell over Redhat and “unpaid” Linux.

Novell has this lovely chart to highlight the benefits of SUSE over “unpaid” Linux. “Unpaid” is a complete spin word, sounding like something Karl Rove cooked up in a focus group.

I see Novell, Hovsepian and Mat Asay are making pitiful comments about the ‘desktop market’ again.

For starters, there is no real desktop market. All the Linux desktop deployments today are done by people who’ve just decided to go out and do it at a grassroots level. There is no ‘corporate’ deployment of desktop Linux in the way that Novell desperately wants to pretend, and there’s certainly no money there for them. I suggest they concentrate on where they’re losing money now, and then they might have a crack at it.

Office 2008 suffers from having two of its most important features — compatibility with Apple’s Intel processors and Microsoft’s new Office 2007 file formats — be things that users can’t directly or immediately see.

By the author’s own admission, there was no review available on time and this post was too shallow and speculative. Search the Web and you’ll immediately find that this promise from Microsoft was empty. Example:

Office 2008 and Office 2007 Compatibility Headache

[...]

After some testing, this is what I discovered. When I saved an Office 2008 document in the .docx format, Office 2007 stripped out some of the spaces. By some, I mean a lot of spaces, including spaces between words as well as a series of leading spaces used to align text. If I saved the same document using Office 2008 in the .doc format (i.e., Word 97), I had no portability problems between the Mac/Windows versions of Office.

Although “total integration with Windows Office users” has always been a promised feature — and chief selling point — of Office for Mac, longtime users know that compatibility is easier said than done. While pre-Office 2007 Word, Excel and Access files created in Office for Windows may be viewable or editable on the Mac, the same cannot be said for e-mail data files created in Outlook for Windows. Considering the importance of e-mail in the office, we find the lack of platform synergy both confusing and irritating.So, how does the Office 2008 beta handle these two hurdles? The results, sadly, are mixed.

This is interoperability? Microsoft seems unable to maintain fidelity even with its own software across platforms. How unmaintainable is OOMXL? █

OpenSUSE users wish to believe that they are independent from Novell and unaffected by the company’s pact with Microsoft. Well, here is a must-read from Beranger. It’s quite an eye opener.

So, the most shocking part for me? The openSUSE 11.0b3 EULA.

“The Grumpy Editor” is quoting the most relevant parts: «It must be said that this distribution got off on rather the wrong foot; it puts up an end-user license agreement which prohibits redistribution for compensation, bundling openSUSE with any other “offering,” reverse engineering, transfer of the software, use in a production environment, or publishing benchmark results (but only if you’re a software vendor). Users are required to stop using the software upon termination of the license, which happens after 90 days, after the next release, or whenever Novell says so. And, just in case one was considering the crime of using the release for too long: “The Software may contain an automatic disabling mechanism that prevents its use after a certain period of time, so You should back up Your system and take other measures to prevent any loss of files or data.”»

[...]

Novell, the only way you can use Linux and feel like you’re using Windows. Read the EULA before our lawyers contact you. Most important: we might disable your copy whenever we want. Free Trojan horse included. “Upgrade to SLED or to Vista” coupon available on request.

What Brian at Linux Today once labeled “how not to treat your readership [or audience]“

One particular article that was highlighted by Slashdot yesterday serves as a brilliant FUD piece against the GPL. It made the front page. While its aim is to shed light on what becomes an integral part of almost every software, it politely ‘misunderstands’ a few important concepts. Rather than view to the article again, consider reading the following rebuttal.

Irreconcilable conflict between $ and Open Source ?!

[...]

I guess this particular attorney has never heard of Red Hat (aiming for $1 billion in revenue), Oracle (runs its own infrastructure on open source software), Cisco (world’s largest networking vendor that is now backing Linux) and many other for profit vendors that all have somehow RECONCILED open source and profit

But that’s not all. As you may already know, Microsoft sponsors SourceForge Awards. It takes pride as ‘the’ one company which is seemingly running the show with Visual Studio and FUD-invoking ‘prizes’ (the awards of shame). That is still the case. Remember that only Microsoft is listed among the/as a sponsor (nothing has changed since the last time) and now comes even worse FUD from Slashdot (same owners as SourceForge), which portrays open source as potentially illegal.

Nominations Open For “Most Likely to be Shut Down By Government”

The corporate overlords at SourceForge asked me to name a Slashdot category for their upcoming Community Choice Awards and to let you guys select the winner. I have named my category “Most Likely to be Shut Down by a Government Agency.” We’re going to run this like we do an Ask Slashdot call for questions — post your nominations into the comments here. Use moderation to send up good ideas. In the upcoming days we’ll post another story where you can vote on the actual winner. Nominations need to include the project name, a link to some sort of official website, and a paragraph of why you think they deserve to win. The project that wins will gain fame, notoriety, and maybe a cease and desist order that they could print out and frame if they had that kind of time.

Overall, by reading Slashdot, what can one conclude? That open source is anti-profit-making corporations and that any day it might be “shut down by government”? Maybe it’s just flamebait, but it’s happening far too frequently these days. It definitely does not encourage Free software adoption. █

Desktop

The IT Service Center Berlin has announced the development of a desktop system for the public services in Germany’s capital (Google Translate to English). This is yet another public body making the switch to the Free Desktop system

If you want Linux to flourish, you better…they are the ones that are going to make this Linux thing happen. A decade of “word of mouth” has barely gotten us 5 percent market share world-wide. Is it growing? Probably, but with efforts like LIN08, it can grow a whole bunch faster.

Mobiles/Laptops

However, if what we’ve already heard holds up, then we’re looking at 8.9-inches dolled up in a sub-$500 price tag with a choice of both Windows XP Home or Ubuntu Linux, 8-in-1 card reader, integrated webcam, direct media playback buttons, and a “host of wireless access options.” Expect more next week as the Computex show kicks off.

Linpus Technologies announced it will join Intel’s “Moblin” Linux project, aimed at developing software for low-cost notebooks based on Intel Atom processors. The mature Linux distributor says its “Linux Lite” distribution runs 20 percent longer under batteries when using software developed by the Moblin project.

The Noahpad is offered with Windows XP or Linux, a 1GHz C7 processor from Via Technology, and a hard drive up to 120G bytes. It uses 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for connectivity and has two USB ports, an SD card reader and a VGA port. It weighs 1.8 pounds (0.8 Kg).